Introduction
I cannot say that this is my story, for all that it does involve me and the events of my life. It touches on many lives and stories overlap as they will. I cannot, therefore comment upon more than my part of the story. What I know I will share until it pass to another.
~ >< ~
PART 1
I am told I was born inside the city walls, but to this I cannot testify, for though I was of course present, I was in no condition to note my surroundings. My mother had been visiting in the city with some friends when my time came. As my mother's friend was in favor of the royal family, she was attended to by the best care available. I should mention that born along with me, and slightly before, was my twin brother. So it was by technicality I was to be the youngest of my family.
It had been some time before I was born that my father had been named to the station of a minor lord of the realm. I never uncovered the full circumstance to this appointment, though it had something to do with bravery in a battle. What battle and with whom never interested me much as we lived in a time of peace and pleanty.
My brother and I were but a few weeks old when we made the long journey home in early spring, the birthing season, in the year thirteen hundred ninty seven. My father had been lord of Mayfield for only a short time - less than a year, yet already it had prospered under his care. I grew up there among the rolling green hills and brown fluff of the cattails at the edge of the water. My father, I assumed was very engrossed with the care of the land and running his estate for I seldom saw him as a child. My mother seemed to want little to do with me lest to instruct me in the proper procedure for the daily chores of maintaining the home of a lord. Even at that young age she was determined to marry me well.
My twin, Geren, as opposite me as day is from night, was my daily companion and great joy. He was dark with fine brown hair the color of chestnuts, while I was pale, excepting the darker flecks that freckled my skin, with unruly red curls. Together we would escape the stronghold and journey together afar to explore the forest.
(cont.)